I love cabeceo

Incidentally, I have been having discussions about cabeceo with a couple of friends on facebook. Yesterday made me love this even more.

I live in San Telmo at the moment. In the first week of my tenancy I went mainly to milongas in Palermo. But I am not here (just) doing tourism, I am working and I have to wake up early (very early) in the morning. So, finishing at 4am in the morning to wake up at 7am is not an option, or at least one I should be doing as many times as I did in the first week. So this week I decided to go to San Telmo's milongas and yesterday, wednesday, I went to Maldita milonga, literally 3 minutes from my door, in Peru 571.

Got there a bit late and Orchesta Típica El Afronte were on full steam playing on stage. Wow, what a sound! I looked for a place to seat, there weren't many left but there was a few chairs near the DJ. I sat and thought how was I going to ask to dance. The room was pretty dark and the place around the tables was pitch black. Tried to cabeceo for half an hour, obviously it didn't work. Then got my energy together and went to ask a lady on the table across "No estoy bailando" she answered to my request. I then magically got the looks from a tanguera near the bar and cabaceoed her to a set of milonga tandas, too bad she couldn't dance milonga... Then again to cabeceo for a lengthy tanda and no success. Went over to ask another follower to which she replied "Perdon, solo bailo con mi pareja!". At this point we had cabeceo 1- inviting directly 0. I then went near the stage and stared at a person who I saw dancing with more than one person... Success, double success as she was also a nice dancer. The night finished with yet another let down, a miserable "estoy cansada" after a direct invitation. Final result cabeceo 2 - direct invitation -0.

During the night I saw a few women refusing dances to men that gather their courage and went over to ask for a dance. They weren't bad leaders as I saw them dancing with other people. And my point is, cabeceo avoids all this crap of being refused in front of eveyone else.

I'm not sure if I am going to Maldita milonga (or for that sake, Bendita milonga) again... I found the space very awkward to get social dances... I left the venue as frustrated as I ever got since I arrived. Not good for karma. Not good.

Tango game

Artur is probably one of the only few people from my hometown that has surrendered to Argentinian Tango. He writes in a really nice blog, Tango Atlântico, which is written in Portuguese and as such, inaccessible to most of you. I have the pleasure of having him as a guest tangologuer. I hope you like it!

I believe there are more blacks and whites on the rules in the milonga rather than grays. I do have a lot of sympathy for women who walk alone in milonga and patiently wait to be invited to dance. Lets be clear in this game that the role of the leader is easier, by the simple fact he dances whenever he wants. If followers are available he always dances his favorite music. For women this is not exactly true. Men normally find that a good milonga it is a milonga where the number of women it is higher than men. Leaders like to choose and followers like to be chosen. Women have to play the game of making the men invite her to dance. The women have to be shown for the first time to be invited again. For women, high mood and great self-esteem helps a lot, as weel as being sighted in a visible position in the room. Especially in US and Europe, no one gets upset if women go and ask the men to dance. Cabeceo is something that it is only fully understood after being in Buenos Aires. Just in a few milongas in France/Spain, the cabeceo is done, but nothing like in Buenos Aires. If you go with your partner, you have to step-away from your partner if both of you want to dance with others. Never dance more than one tanda in a row (or 3 tangos) with you partner. Then step aside, go to fetch a drink, go to toilet or invite immediately after other partner. If you stay chatting no one comes to interrupt your conversation if you are in an alien place. I do this with my wife and it works. Both of us dance, and normally she dances more than me.

Life is not black and white. And neither is tango!

I have seen far too many posts of women complaining that some man only (or mostly) invite single women to dance. The first assumption is that those men simply want a bit more than a dance, they want a fling, a one night stand, something along those lines...
While I am absolutely certain that in lots of occasions that is the case I would like to point out that some men don't feel confident to ask women around when they have a partner. It happened to me many times. A good follower comes around, I want to ask her to dance but she is dancing with her partner and in the few moments they are not dancing they are observing or talking to each other. Hey, I can't explain it, but it's definitely easier to invite a girl that is alone (and had no one to dance anyway) than someone who comes "sheltered" by a pair.
I have also noticed that it has happened to my partner as well. We go to an unknown milonga and she gets much less dances than when she goes on her own. It is certainly not because the lack of abilities as I find that she is usually well above the average wherever she goes. We don't give any particular signs that we do not want people to come and ask for a dance.
I don't really know how to circumvent this problem. What I want the general female public to be aware is that we man have to do quite a hard task, to take initiative and ask for a dance. Shades of grey do exist in the tango world.